Last four digits of a Social Security #

  • Thread starter Thread starter JZ
  • Start date Start date
J

JZ

I want to make a change in our process and only require
employees to give the last four digits of their Soc. Sec.#
(instead of the entire thing) when they are registering
for a course. My issue is after I have tested the process
many people have the same last four digits or even last
five. I am having a brain block. How can I make this
work?

Your knowledge is appreciated.

JZ
 
Please explain a little further what your trying to accomplish.

Is this going to be used for a password?

Are you trying to look up the customer by their ss#?
This wont work without some other identifying information. Such as
first name etc...
 
I want to make a change in our process and only require
employees to give the last four digits of their Soc. Sec.#
(instead of the entire thing) when they are registering
for a course. My issue is after I have tested the process
many people have the same last four digits or even last
five. I am having a brain block. How can I make this
work?
Click to expand...

Well... if you want to uniquely identify an employee, you must
uniquely identify the employee; clearly the four digits of the SSN are
not unique. You CAN'T make this work, as you have described the
problem.

If the goal is just to save keystrokes, why not use a Combo Box with
the employee's name or SSN, so that they can simply select themselves
from a list rather than typing anything in at all?
 
You can't, although it must be a huge company if this is true.
I suspect most people can enter all the SSN faster than they can the last
four digits if you add the time it takes to remember them out of sequence.
First initial and first four letters of last name is very good. Add a number
if there is a tie.
Same for initials and DOB. This is probably better since most "ties" are in
the form of twins.
 
Are you withholding taxes, or doing some other thing prescribed by law? If
not, I suggest you think of something other than Social Security No. to
identify people anyway. Even state colleges can't require students to give
them their SS#.

Ed
 
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